The United States Coast Guard regularly patrols the waterways around Washington, D.C. Its cutters communicate with each other, and with the agency's Washington Field Office, on a radio frequency of 157.050 megahertz. Most of the time, the radios are broadcast in the clear, and most of the transmissions are analog, which means that almost any commercially available radio scanner can pick them up. Often, the Coast Guard operates on frequencies designed as "Marine" -- which civilian boats, equipped with transceivers, can monitor and use as a way of calling for help.

A scanner buff this morning picked up radio chatter, out of
context, from a training exercise conducted by Coast Guard boats
operating in the vicinity of Washington, D.C. The buff called the tip into CNN.
According to a statement released by CNN, this buff happened to be an
assignment editor on its news desk. After looking at live video of the
Potomac River through a fixed camera -- the networks all have them
around DC -- the network broke into its coverage.

It's not
clear whether the boats in question were the boats seen on television
as the alerts began to panic newsrooms all over Washington. From the
perspective of a cable executive producer or assignment editor, a few
trigger words -- "shots, President, motorcade, 9/11, Pentagon" -- are
pretty much all it takes to get something on the air. That's
unfortunate, of course, because scanner traffic, unless very carefully
monitored and cross-checked, isn't always as accurate as it might seem.
Most other news entities were careful -- they checked in with their
sources, including at the FBI, the Secret Service and the Pentagon, and
they found that no one knew anything about an incident. Most elected to
be careful.

A Coast Guard spokesman
confirmed that "reports in the media were based
on overheard radio calls made over a training frequency." The agency,
part of the Department of Homeland Security, promised to conduct a
thorough review of the incident.

"There were Coast Guard boats were operating in the
vicinity of 14th Street
and Memorial Bridges this morning. Whether or not
these were the same boats using the marine radio frequency used for training
purposes has not yet been confirmed," the agency said in its statement. "The best way that we in the Coast Guard can remember
Sept. 11 and our security obligations to the nation is to be always ready and
this requires constant training and exercise.To ensure the appropriate readiness posture we conduct training
scenarios across the nation on a daily basis."

Whenever the president travels over
the bridges crossing the Potomac River, the Washington, D.C. police
department's harbor patrol units monitor the vessel traffic. This
morning, Obama's motorcade crossed the 14th street bridge separating
Washington, D.C., from the Pentagon complex in Arlington. Because the
Pentagon and Reagan Airport abut the Potomac, there is always heavy
security -- regardless of whether there's a special event or not.

That
the Coast Guard scheduled a training exercise for 9/11 isn't worrisome.
We're not precisely sure whether the radio transmissions referred to
boats in the vicinity of the Pentagon memorial, or whether the Coast
Guard was operating miles away. In general, it's hard to imagine a
scenario where the Coast Guard wouldn't notify higher-ups at the
Department of Homeland Security that it planned to conduct some
training in the so-called "kill zone" abutting the capital, and that
the Secret Service hadn't notified the USCG in advance of the
motorcade. It's imperative that the Coast Guard communicate on clear
frequencies because it must communicate with civilian vessels. The
agency does work some missions on encrypted frequencies; one would
assume that training exercises, which involve sensitive sources and
methods, ought to be one of those missions.

According to a
person who listened to the training exercise, the Coast Guard was
broadcasting on "Marine Channel 81A," 157.075, which is designated for
"government use only." According to CNN's transcript of the radio
traffic, one of the Coast Guard officers used the word "scenario" at
one point, but the context was difficult to ascertain:

:24 you're approaching a coast guard security zone
:50 you're in a coast guard security zone
1:50 If you don't stop your vessel you will be fired upon. stop your vessel immediately
2:00 If you don't slow down and stop your vessel, and leave our zone you will be fired upon.
2:18 still in the zone, still in the zone
2:25 someone saying: bang, bang, bang
2:35 we have expended ten rounds, the vessel is operating at stern. we're going to reassess the situation.
3:20 this is the coast guard, have everyone go to the stern, place your engine in neutral
3:35 _____ out of play, _____ out of play, break scenario, break scenario, break

Aside
from scaring the bejebers out of everyone, erroneous reports can create
a cascade effect that turns a mistake into an emergency. Case in point:
the Federal Aviation Authority, based on media reports, immediately
shut down Reagan National Airport, causing a traffic jam in the
airspace around Washington, which is always more dangerous for the
planes that are waiting to land. Another law enforcement agency that
patrols an island near the airport also took precautionary measures
relying on CNN because the Coast Guard had no information to give.

And a sad repercussion: there are a segment of 9/11 "Truther" conspiracy theorists who believe that the government was conducting some sort of training exercise
on 9/11/2001 in New York -- a training exercise that somehow either
went terribly wrong or was turned into an act of terror by malevolent
forces. Incidents like the one today reinforce those false and harmful
beliefs.

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